1 minute ago, Evolution13 said:

There needs to be more that 10 times as many built and on the roads be that by 2035 or 2040 & there is the issue that the vehicle manufacturers are very much aware of. That and people wanting to own them.

People, more ordinary drivers, will want to drive them as the running costs fall well below that of ICE cars.

This is achieved by ICE car fuel rising faster than inflation, pension and wage inflation m, whilst EVs just gets cheaper abd cheaper to buy, PCP etc and cheaper to rub with cheaper energy costs.

Octopus just confirmed that £150, average, reduction in energy costs will be passed to customers with fixed deals too and if on the unit cost, rather than standing charge as initially mentioned then EV users could see their energy costs dmdrop by £300 a year plus, pretty much negating the 3p a mile upcoming charge.

We need to see Nissan to do well at Washington Sunderland but also JLR to pivot to EVs which they say they are doing. Hopefully Toyota at Burniston too.

Whilst the EU, it appears, will drop the 2030- 2035 ICE ban the CO2 targets, and penalties are looking like being so stringent ie low CO2, that the ICE hybrids will be more like the BMW i3 with range extender or one of the Fiats tgat also had about a 600cc twin cylinder engine, maybe it might be a single cylinder engine of about 250-350 Cc and by then petrol will be about £2 a litre by extrapolation ?

Certainly will give engineers a challenge to make vehicles with CO2 of say 75 gm/ km, then 50, the. 25, then 10 or less, in Real World conditions too not just in a lab. Possible but difficult.

@lol-lol when is it going to sink in with you that more than half the drivers of vehicles do not or will not have Home charging available & will always require public / shared charging which presently can be 10 times more expensive then 'Cheap tariff' home charging. & maybe half the passenger vehicles on the roads are not Company / works vehicles.

7 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

@lol-lol when is it going to sink in with you that more than half the drivers of vehicles do not or will not have Home charging available & will always require public / shared charging which presently can be 10 times more expensive then 'Cheap tariff' home charging. & maybe half the passenger vehicles on the roads are not Company / works vehicles.

Think it is about 45 % and I am all for for levelling some of the aspects of home and public charging costs starting with VAT on public charging going down to the E rate of 5% like home lecky. Sunak did not even answer the question when asked in Parliament. Wish Octopus would do their own chargers.

As well as VAT the unloading of additional charges on electricity to everyone should help bring prices dien by another few pence too.

I love our Mini Cooper E but like many Minis it has lowish range. I have been wondering for a while why you choose an EV with such a low range when driving around in the Big Country ?

Edited 13 December, 202513 Dec by lol-lol

45% in the UK, or the EU / Europe. Personally i think that is total rubbish as far as people able to park their car / van at their home. Time will tell just how things go. One thing is pretty certain and that is the UK not having Energy Security be that for liquid fuels & gas requiring importation and also electricity into the UK. England might be decades before it can generate it's own needs.

48 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

45% in the UK, or the EU / Europe. Personally i think that is total rubbish as far as people able to park their car / van at their home. Time will tell just how things go. One thing is pretty certain and that is the UK not having Energy Security be that for liquid fuels & gas requiring importation and also electricity into the UK. England might be decades before it can generate it's own needs.

Wind has hit 24 GWs production and that records is being broken almost every month with all the new turbines coming on line.

More and more solar with solar farms and hone generation is happening

More battery storage sites are being built and home storage continues to grow.

UK does need projects lije the Great Glen Hydro project and tidal schemes in the Bristol Channel and Western Isles, Orkney etc for a good reliable source of power as well as more country to country interconnectors.

Some on this site are already largely self reliant for powet most of the year, it is this depth of winter that id tge only hard bit between i can generate some power here near the winter solstice if ther is a bit of sun shine then download the rest i need from the cheap wind and nuclear base load where energy companies can still make a profit at 7p a kwh and hopefully that will near half in April. When retired I might give Octopus Agile a go and get more of the free stuff.

We are all waiting to see these new solar panels with double the efficiency and in combo with yet more wind, some tidal and pump storage no gas or oil will be needed hardly ever and UK can be net zero for carbon.

39 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

Some on this site are already largely self reliant for power most of the year.

Most members of this site are not representative of the car driving population of the UK, which you seem to keep forgetting.

Most UK residents do not have solar on their homes, and even less have solar with batteries.

A significant proportion do not have driveways so cannot be sure of parking within a cable reach of their home.

Taking all these factors into account there is a large percentage who will be dependent on public chargers, so the cost and UK wide availability of public EV charging is what is limiting EV take up.

The energy requirements in the UK, gas, electricity, fuels for transportation etc is for industry, commerce as much as domestic accommodations. For water & sewage and upcoming is all the electricity Data Centres will require. These Small Nuclear Modular plants that are getting so much public money need building PDQ. There is a lot of steel needing imported, and the technical staff will be needing to come from someplace & into the UK to be building stuff, including erecting pylons. What a shambles the UK is really as far as energy security and training / apprenticeships and people skilled in the jobs needing done. Oil & Gas offshore workers and car workers seem not to be transitioning into jobs that pay less than they have grown used to.

9 hours ago, PetrolDave said:

Most members of this site are not representative of the car driving population of the UK, which you seem to keep forgetting. Most UK residents do not have solar on their homes, and even less have solar with batteries. A significant proportion do not have driveways so cannot be sure of parking within a cable reach of their home. Taking all these factors into account there is a large percentage who will be dependent on public chargers, so the cost and UK wide availability of public EV charging is what is limiting EV take up.

I don't have solar "on my home" nor to millions of Europeans but they do have solar panels on their balconies, gardens etc. Batteries, EVs and solar panels are not as elitist as you seem to believe. Batteries and panels start from a few quid. Some countries, like France, got less well off in EVs for 99 Euros a month. If one cannot charge at home then there are public charging firm contracts from a few pounds a month which half the price of public charging and then is always TESLA if you can stand using his network but it is generally much cheaper.

There are still issues with availability which I found having to traverse Wiltshire and Dorset to go to a stag do in Bournemouth from Worcester, bit of a desert for charging between M4 and the south coast road. But public chargers are funded to treble in the next few years bringing them up to 300,000 and cost will fall with energy price reductions next April and competition and more off peak cheap slots and compared to what fuel is going to cost in 12 months time the price differential will be even bigger than now.

Edited 14 December, 202514 Dec by lol-lol

This supposed energy price reduction next April is not reducing the cost of buying electricity at public chargers is it? How much in pence is this drop on energy prices on say 60 pence a kWh including 20% VAT? £150 drop for an average families energy due to the Green levy change. so £3 a week but many are below the average and they might be £150 a month for electric and gas and are not going to be paying £150 less a year. I pay £2.30 for a 200g jar of coffee. Plenty while going charging an EV will go pay more than that buying just a hot drink. Social divide,

Edited 14 December, 202514 Dec by Evolution13

I have only had an Ev 14 months and I am under no illusion that that the ongoing costs of having it are not going to go up year on year.

2 hours ago, Evolution13 said:

This supposed energy price reduction next April is not reducing the cost of buying electricity at public chargers is it? How much in pence is this drop on energy prices on say 60 pence a kWh including 20% VAT? £150 drop for an average families energy due to the Green levy change. so £3 a week but many are below the average and they might be £150 a month for electric and gas and are not going to be paying £150 less a year. I pay £2.30 for a 200g jar of coffee. Plenty while going charging an EV will go pay more than that buying just a hot drink. Social divide,

Is it not to unload those costs that are levied on the cost of electricity ? Private or public ?

Suppose to be worth MSE says as below ........

Big question is will the 3.54p come off the 8.5 p/kwh and 7 p/kwh tariffs making them incredibly cheap.

Why would the Public charger operators also not get the 3.37p per kwh off the pre VAT price ?

With VAT at 20% for public charging the price should come down by 3.37x1.2 ie 4.04 p /kwh !

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/are-there-any-cheap-fixed-energy-deals-currently-worth-it/#:~:text=Cap%20Forecasting%20Services.-,'%C2%A3150'%20to%20be%20cut%20from%20energy%20bills%20from%20April,(0.35p%20including%20VAT).

---

This is the average saving per household. In practice, the reduction will come from cheaper unit rates (so higher users will save more as they use more, lower users less). So from April:

• Electricity: Unit rates to be reduced by 3.37p/kWh (3.54p including VAT)

• Gas: Unit rates to be reduced by 0.31p/kWh (0.35p including VAT).

---

Yes it is wonderful coming off low tariff electricity like 7 or 8.5 pence a kWh. ? why should it not come off the price Public Charging providers pay? Because it is not likely to. End of, but you keep posting costs dropping. Councils that have set their tariffs for chargers are not making any reductions even if the energy price drops. This is Real World and what Martin Lewis or you or i would like does not then just happen. You need to see beyond Home / Work charging, and business users. There are those that are not getting financial incentives or payment paid towards their vehicles or fuel / energy. Like maybe half the driving public.

Edited 14 December, 202514 Dec by Evolution13

I expect the reduction to be off the standard tariff I doubt it will be off the off -peak tariffs

'They' say, helping the poorest and most in need reduce bills. Well that is not those already using lots of electricity but with cheap tariffs. But then those that pay their bills and are not in debt are having to pay for those that spent their money and help they already got on other stuff and are to have vthose debts written off.

3 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

Yes it is wonderful coming off low tariff electricity like 7 or 8.5 pence a kWh. ? why should it not come off the price Public Charging providers pay? Because it is not likely to. End of, but you keep posting costs dropping. Councils that have set their tariffs for chargers are not making any reductions even if the energy price drops. This is Real World and what Martin Lewis or you or i would like does not then just happen. You need to see beyond Home / Work charging, and business users. There are those that are not getting financial incentives or payment paid towards their vehicles or fuel / energy. Like maybe half the driving public.

I am sure you see it that particular public charging networks alter their prices to get in the customers. Worse thing for them is to make millions of pounds of investment in public charging, in the hardware, and not have many people use it.

Prices of public charging waggle around in different networks and there are deals thru loyalty cards and different pricing at different times. I look at them with some interest but as you say I am lucky enough to have a couple of wall chargers at home and live in the "Mid"lands so my radius of travel covers most of England and to get home with little to no public charging but I do need the Public charging to be there as I occasionally need a zap of a few kwh to get me home, especially as I went for the smaller battery Scenic, Renault 5 and the son's Mini Cooper E has an even smaller battery than the R5.

Like you I probably use all the tools ie ZAPMAP, Electroverse, ABRP etc. Even used TESLA V4 chargers, God save my soul, because they were in the right place, reliable and cheapish. With 2,000 chargers being added every month price wars will intensify naturally and I will keep an eye on the best deals. If TESLA can knock out deals at 31p per kwh as it is at Aviemore, barely more than home price. I have trips to Devon, Felixstowe, South Wales and later in 2026 to Disneyland Paris so will need to suss out Public charging for these longer journeys. Hopefully they will be as great as Gridserve Rugby but without the high prices. Of course it is not just the price of electricity to the public chargers but connection fees and massive capital costs of these units. As more EVs are on the road and with all the additional public chargers kwh prices should come down. It was so much cheaper in Euro, Portugal my recent experience, where it was about half the price it seemed. Sme lesson to learn from them !

Over £65 million of public money in Scotland since 2011 for chargers and the administration of them for a population of under 6 million for Charge Place Scotland and much of the chargers broken, removed, switched off, gone, no longer available to the public after the first 2 years after the grants made to have them installed. So 15 years on it is back to Councils / Tax payers putting in chargers, or the need for the Commercial Companies putting in Chargers, hubs etc. They are actually managing to do that and charge the same or less than Councils in Scotland now charge for Electricity which might be generated locally and often on Public owned land, or land where land owners have already had subsidies, Aviemore TESLA 31 pence.off peak, and 57 pence peak. Charge Place Scotland Highland Council 70 pence. Geniepoint 95 pence. ForEV 65 pence. SWARCO have done very well from Installing and maintaining or not maintaining chargers (e-Volt owned by SWARCO) and replacing ones and running the back shop for BP when they ran CPS and the past few years of pathetic management.

Edited 14 December, 202514 Dec by Evolution13

31 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

I expect the reduction to be off the standard tariff I doubt it will be off the off -peak tariffs

Can always hope.

I think many of us would like to see the daily standing charges cut.

Octopus have said they will pass on the savings even to those on good fixed contracts.

We will see as to the prices both for Q1 of 2026, which are going to ve painful, thankfully Feb is a short month, and the the reveal for the electricity Day and Night rates in the new era of those additional costs being removed from the real time bills to general taxation. I am just happy to see the Night time rate stay low is about a third of Day time rate so 24 p per kwh for Day time and even 8p per kwh for Night would be great plus the smaller reduction in gas prices too. Might mean I am happier to charge the EVs to 80, 85, 90% at Night time rate abd the. Just program to top off just before travelling to precondition battery and cabin before setting off.

Fingers crossed for reductions in Public charging and Night time rates as well as the Day time rates.

I think many would like to see a fairer system where there are less have and have nots. Lots would like to see proper Regional Standing Charges but that was made clear as a no no. I think any region that blocks pylons being built were that region is the end user should have a surcharge imposed on them.

While this is not strictly relevant to the topic, it is however, pretty relevant just the same.

Kemi Badenoch: Tories to scrap petrol ban if they win next election - BBC News

26 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

While this is not strictly relevant to the topic, it is however, pretty relevant just the same.

Kemi Badenoch: Tories to scrap petrol ban if they win next election - BBC News

An attempt to get some support back?

Hell will freeze over and the oceans will over top before She is ever a Prime Minister. Nigel Farage has better odds, and he is likely to do what she says she would. But this is politics / fiction.

Whatever it is, there are signs around that the electric bubble might be about to burst and destined to be come an option rather than the only option if a new car is purchased.

If electric cars are seen as an absolute no brainier because they are better in every way, then the public will make the decision to switch, in the same way as they did from horses to cars. People will switch if they can see they are better, the carrot is always the way to go, far better than the stick.

Edited 14 December, 202514 Dec by Graham Butcher

They are wonderful when running right, and when you can have repairs or servicing when required. Fabulous if you are running them for maybe 200 miles and at less than 1 gallon of fuel. Crap if it cost 50% to 100% more because it gets charged on public chargers. Really the UK Grants are not much of an incentive. There are big Chinese built EV,s with good range and Much Cheapness about to buy or lease, but if charging using public charging no matter how low the lease or purchase price there is the cost of running and depreciation to consider. A £27,000-£30,001 EV SUV running cheaply for 10 years seems like a 'simply clever' decision. But now the UK Government plan charging per mile at 3 pence. Carrot then whack on the head with a stick. ....................... Under £25,000 for an ICE Model. Wunderba. *** A page for the EV version for £217 a month including VAT keeps popping up on the EON NEXT website then goes before i can click on it and is not coming up with a search.***

Edited 14 December, 202514 Dec by Evolution13

As yet unconfirmed, but multiple sources say that the EU have announced that the ban on all ICE cars has been lifted indefinitely, but CO2 has to be dropped by a greater margin, so it seems that the electric transition is going to be left to the market to decide which propulsion method will become the popular choice after all.

But as I said, it is yet to be confirmed, and of course that would raise the question of will the UK also follow suit? My money is going on 'yes, we would'.

If this is correct, I suspect that the real reason behind it is that climate change and the tailpipe emissions have been proven not to be linked after all.

Edited 14 December, 202514 Dec by Graham Butcher

Unconfirmed because they have not announced it, when they do the announcement will be public. So which sources have been told but can not confirm it? There does seem to be signs they will get the way of changing the plans the EU have about 2035. ........................... Has Manfred Webber actually made the announcement or not?

Edited 14 December, 202514 Dec by Evolution13